Beyond Painting - Clerys of O'Connell Street, Dublin

Posted by Chris Mc Morrow on Feb 06, 2018

James Joyce mentions Clerys in Ulysses "All Tuesday week afternoon she was hunting to match that chenille but at last she had found what she wanted at Clerys' summer sales, the very it, slightly shop soiled but you would never notice, seven fingers two and a penny."

There is a statue right across the road of Jim Larkin, the union activist. He was arrested in 1913 as he gave a speech from one of the Clery's balconies.

Clerys was one of the first buildings to be set on fire during the 1916 Rising. After its destruction Clerys moved to a warehouse on Abbey Street for six years before it was re-opened in 1922 back on O’Connell Street